The Motorola Atrix 4G Was Ahead of Its Time

Coming back from covering this most recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, I've been reminiscing about past shows – about how mobile used to have stronger presence. In the last several years, however, that hasn't been the case at all! Nowadays, most companies reserve their major flagship announcements for Mobile World Congress, which makes perfect sense when you consider it's THE showcase event for mobile.Going back to this most recent CES, checking out Razer's Project Linda concept made old memories rush back into my mind. For those of you that are unaware, Project Linda is basically a laptop dock designed to work with the company's latest gaming-centric smartphone, the Razer Phone. After docking the smartphone into position where the trackpad is normally situated, it becomes the brains behind the operation for the laptop 'shell.'Frankly, there's nothing original about the concept, as many other devices have employed implementations that are very similar. In particular, I remember how the Motorola ATRIX 4G first wowed me with its interpretation back at CES 2011 all those years ago. And the more I began thinking about that smartphone, the more it began to dawn upon me that it was just one of those things that were too ahead of their time.

The first true high-end Android offering on AT&T

Exclusives were still all the rage during that period, but for AT&T, the arrival of the Motorola ATRIX 4G finally blessed the carrier's lineup with its first truly high-end Android smartphone. Prior to the ATRIX 4G, they had forgettable and quirky devices like the Bravo, Flipside, and Flipout – none of them were really powerhouse Android smartphones. The specs for the ATRIX 4G were undeniably drool worthy, featuring things like a 4-inch qHD display, dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 chipset, 1GB of RAM, and a 5-megapixel rear camera.

You know what else it managed to pack along? At a time when video chatting was still in its infancy, the ATRIX 4G did flaunt a 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera for the occasion. In addition, it was one of the first phones to offer HSPA+ connectivity, which was regarded as speedy for the time before LTE.

Everything about the ATRIX 4G was favorable, but it was especially gratifying for AT&T to extend its Android lineup with a real high-end offering. Motorla already made headlines much earlier with the various Motorola DROIDs it released with Verizon, but all of that didn't take away from the thunder that was produced by the ATRIX 4G's arrival.

Fingerprint sensor before the iPhone 5s

While fingerprint sensors were found on a multitude of phones prior to the Motorola ATRIX 4G, it was nonetheless a pretty rare sighting – more so considering that the iPhone 5s was still 2 years away from launching. Yes, the implementation employed by the ATRIX wasn't as intuitive as today's fingerprint sensors, mainly because it utilized older technology that forced users to slowly swipe their finger in a downwards direction for it to work. It wasn't perfect or responsive at all times, but the ATRIX 4G was one of the few phones that added an extra layer of security.

Today we take fingerprint sensors for granted, but it was undoubtedly something seen as a luxury back in 2011. The Motorola ATRIX 4G to its credit was one of these rare phones that offered a fingerprint sensor, making it somewhat more advanced than its contemporaries.